Great Hair
by bikelock28
Summary: "He's a man in a suit. Tall, thin man- great hair". Rose's PoV one-shot during her scene with Donna in Turn Left. 10/Rose canon.
**This is a one-shot in Rose's PoV, set during her conversation with Donna in** _ **Turn Left.**_ **Hope you enjoy.**

Great Hair

"You knew him," Rose explains.

"Did I?" Donna shoots back. She looks stunned. She looks like she believes it. "When?"

"I think you dream about him sometimes," Rose continues, unable to hide her smile. God knows she dreams about the Doctor enough herself. The first one occasionally, but mostly the second one. (He'd explained to her about previous regenerations once, the TARDIS had image files of them all. But to Rose's mind they were always the first one and the second one). _Her_ one. She dreams about his laugh and his voice, his footsteps and his clatter. She dreams about the monsters and the aliens, the running and the shouting, the sights and the adventures. She dreams about his coat and his jacket, his ties and his trainers. She dreams about his hand in hers, her fingertips of his jaw, his lips on her cheek. Her mouth on his, although that memory had always been vague thanks to it not really being Rose who had kissed him. And yes, she has dreams about them in bed together, dreams about limbs and tongues and hips, dreams about rolling and panting and biting. Truth be told, she had those sorts of dreams when she was travelling with his on the TARDIS. She could barely face him in the morning when he'd be all chirpy and cheery and she'd have to pretend that she hadn't been having very un-PG thoughts out him in her sleep. Now though, Rose relishes those dreams. Being with him in any capacity is worth it. It's even worth waking up to remember that it isn't real and she'll never see him again.

Well, she _will_ now. She's found Donna, and Donna's starting to believe her. The world's gone mad and the Doctor is dead but if Rose can convince Donna to come with her, then everything can be fixed. The Doctor can fix it. She can see him again. Hug him, grasp him- kiss him, perhaps. For real this time.

"'S a man in a suit," she illuminates for Donna, who is still looking shocked and concerned. That means that they're getting somewhere.

"Tall, thin man". Always too thin, even though he ate like a horse. Well, he did a lot of running, Rose concedes. His spindly legs pell-melling away from werewolves or Cybermen or Krillitanes. He reminded her of Bambi sometimes, with his stick-like limbs and brown eyes and the fact that he was completely adorable. He'd giggle and stumble and muss up his fringe. _God,_ when he used to muss up his fringe. It made her heart skip a beat, and she'd have to try hard not to swoon.

" _Grrre_ at hair," Rose growls, blinking distractedly at the memory. The Doctor wasn't a vain man; he'd sort of pretended to be in a Hugh Grant, Jack Harkenss-ish way, but his feigned arrogance had never been particularly convincing. Equally, Rose was never the type of person to simper after the Doctor, follow all his instructions, believe his every word and not wander off. She'd never worshipped him or trotted in his footsteps telling him how amazing he was. He didn't invite humans like that to travel in the TARDIS with him. The one thing both the Doctor and Rose loved, though, was his hair. That had been _amazing._ He'd been obsessed with styling it, gelling it, experimenting with looks. That hair was gravity-defying at times. Sticking up off his head cheerily, sometimes at a slight angle, other times gelled into spikes and splaying everywhere. That one had been Rose's favourite look. It reminded her of him- manic, spiky, going in every direction. She'd seen the Doctor style it a few times (usually because she followed him), using an array of futuristic and sometimes alien products. Concentrating as he studied his reflection, combing and brushing, rubbing wax into his hair, ruffling to rub it through. Playing around with partings, teasing sections of hair into spikes, using his comb to align it perfectly. Rose would roll her eyes and whine about how long he was taking, but she enjoyed watching him and chatting to him while he focussed on the task. And the end result was worth it.

Then there was the mussed-forward hair style- not as spectacular as the spikes, but cute and generally less time-consuming, unless he got into an endless deliberation about which way he wanted his fringe pointing. Often the Doctor would flick the fringe up a little with wax, although Rose had preferred it when he'd left it flat. The contrast of dark hair against his pale skin brought out his cheekbones and made his face look oddly beautiful. God, he was beautiful.

Once, Rose had mentioned casually, "I'd like to see Elvis,"

"Elvis! Of _course!"_ the Doctor shouted, like Elvis was the answer to a particularly difficult trigonometry question. He'd sped off out of the control room into a corridor, only to catch himself on the doorframe and yell back, "Dress for the 50s, Rose! Have a look in your wardrobe- if not, you know where the TARDIS costume section is. You've got one hour!"

She'd put together the 50s look in less than forty minutes, but the Doctor took another half-hour to reappear with his dark hair Brylcreemed impeccably into a pompadour.

"Oh, nice frock," he'd nodded approvingly on seeing her, while Rose burst out laughing.

"What _is_ your _hair?!"_

"It's a quiff," he'd said in that high-pitched, affronted tone, "We're visiting the 50s, what's wrong with a quiff?"

"Think they call it a duck's arse," Rose mumbled, wandering around him to get a view of the back.

"It's the 50s," the Doctor repeated, "I'm fitting in,"

"You? You fit in like Porsche on the Powell Estate,"

"Which is why I'm making a bit of an effort, Rose Tyler," he'd answered tartly.

"It's very neat," Rose observed, eyeing him.

"Thank you," he beamed.

"Neatness isn't exactly a strong point of yours though, is it? You'll mess it up in five minutes,"

"Not with this amount of Brylcreem. Rock-solid,"

"Go on, then, let me have a feel,"

" _Run your pretty fingers through my hair,"_ he'd drawled in a poor Elvis impression.

She'd gone over to him and traced her fingertips along the side of his quiff. Thrilling as it was to touch his hair, the waxy texture made it not especially pleasant.

"It's like some of it's sticky and some of it's crusted," she'd noted, "You're not Elvis yet,"

"Aw, _treat me nice._ Now get out of here, have a gander outside while I get our transport. You're gonna like it,"

It had turned out to be the moped and as cool as that was, the real treat had been riding on the back with her arms round the Doctor's waist, free to skim her hand against his stomach and rest her chin on his shoulder...then of course things had got messy, what the Wire and Rose losing her face temporarily- but they'd been to the Coronation Party, and afterwards they _had_ made it to New York to see Elvis (the Doctor had had to re-do his hair, much to Rose's amusement and exasperation).

He'd run his hands through his hair too, usually when he was thinking excitedly out loud. Grab a chunk of hair and yank it, nattering noisily to himself, and let go leaving his hair at an even more bizarre angle than usual. There was Wet Hair Doctor, with either brown strands dripping over his forehead or all pushed back and flattened to his scalp by the water. It was cute, but Rose's main interest was that Wet Hair Doctor might also entail Wet Shirt Doctor, and boy was that special. Being soaked made his suit stick to him, but the weight of the water pulling it down made it also look like it was hanging off his bony frame. If he took his jacket off she could see the contours of his ribcage, his shoulders which looked so much spindlier without the jacket and overcoat. In his white and pale blue shirts she could see his pale skin through the damp. He wore a navy shirt more often though, and occasionally beige. A tie, too, about half the time. Brown with swirls had been his favourite. One morning (if there were mornings on the TARDIS), he'd swaggered into the control room, tie around his neck but not knotted yet.

"Sleep alright?"

"Yeah. The TARDIS was singing, did you hear?"

"Course I did," the Doctor beamed, giving the console an affectionate tap, "Lovely it was too, darling," he told the TARDIS, "We should duet one day, you and me. Like the Pet Shop Boys, eh- one of us mincing about and blabbering, the other in the background keeping everything running smoothly. I'll let you guess which one I am," he added to Rose.

"Went with Mum to see the Pet Shop Boys live once- a lot more psychedelic weirdness than we ever get with aliens," Rose answered.

"D'you fancy that today, then, a concert? Not Pet Shop Boys necessarily- how about a bit of Madonna? Billie Holiday? Vivaldi?" he asked, jumping round the TARDIS console.

"Nah, not now. Let's go somewhere hot. A beach,"

"A beach? What d'you want a beach for? A beach is all...sandy. Sandy sandy sandiness for miles on end," he scoffed, wrinkling his nose.

"You've never seen the Leo DiCaprio movie, then," Rose muttered.

"You sit around all day on a beach. Where's the fun in that?"

"Okay, take me to an _alien_ beach. There must be some bonkers beaches on those planets out there,"

"You'd just sit round all day. Lazing. Tanning. I don't travel time and space to get a bronzing," the Doctor said disapprovingly.

"Yeah, I can tell that. It's alright, Mr Pastyface, you can bring your Factor 50," she'd taunted.

"Time Lord skin, don't need sun cream," the Doctor deadpanned, taking his undone tie off his collar and stuffing it into his jacket pocket.

"Liar,"

"Yeah," he'd conceded, "I know- let's visit Venus,"

"Planet or the tennis player?"

"Well, I meant the planet- humans get there in the mid 2400s, it's nice and hot for you- but yeah, Wimbledon final if you want. Or De Milo,"

"De-what-o?"

"Venus De Milo. It's a statue, ancient Greece, 122BC. You'll have seen in it history textbooks, it's supposed to be the ancient goddess Aphrodite- that's Venus in Latin- but let's find out who posed for it, eh?" he suggested, leaning towards Rose. She broke into a smile to match his, took his tie from his pocket, and looped it around his neck.

"There's nice beaches in Greece," she'd said, wrapping one end of silk fabric around the other, "Jaymee McConnell went there with her mum in Year 9. Told us she'd got some Greek boyfriend called Alexios- Jaymee, I mean, not her mum. Wasn't true, she was just sayin' it to make Harry Bullinger jealous,"

"Trip to Greece for two then. Island of Milos, 3rd year of the 164th Olympiad,"

The Doctor reached over to switch level on the TARDIS, but didn't start dashing around the console until Rose had finished knotting his tie and smoothed it by running her hand down his chest. His double heartbeat wasn't noticeable in brief touches like that- only audible with an ear pressed against his ribcage or through a stethoscope. The Doctor shown Rose a couple of times with a stethoscope, once in each of the incarnations she'd met him in. "Just in case you don't believe me," he'd said the second time with a wink. It wasn't long after his regeneration, only a few trips after New Earth, so his flirting with her had seemed a little odd. Flattering and fun- but odd. She was still getting used to this version of him back then. Now she couldn't imagine life without the pinstripes and the Converse and the cheeky winks.

"You get your beach, I get my sightseeing," he announced, "Allonsy!"

Sometimes the Doctor would shrug off his jacket and wandered round in just a shirt. Not always a smart one, sometimes a black t-shirt or one of those long-sleeve button-neck t-shirts. They made him look younger when he wore them without the jacket. He'd never bother to do up the buttons, leaving this throat and collar bones and the top of his chest exposed. Rose couldn't help but want to run her fingers down his neck...or her mouth. Her lips over his Adam's apple, her tongue skimming his collar-bones, her teeth scraping on the t-shirt buttons. Pushing him back against one of the TARDIS pillars (Rose wondered briefly if the TARDIS would approve or not. The ship was rather over-protective of her boy, and sometimes it seemed like the Doctor was closer to the TARDIS than anybody else. Perhaps the TARDIS would play trick on them if she disapproved, maybe make of the those pillars they'd be kissing against disappear. The Doctor would tell her off, although Rose is pretty sure that the TARDIS didn't listen to him much), one hand clutching his hair, the other round his waist, pushing her body as close to his as possible. She'd seen him with his shirt _off_ a couple of times, and, well, he wasn't exactly Brad Pitt in the torso department. He was more...milk bottle skinniness than tanned beefcake. She'd have liked that though, because it was _him_ , his body (and come on, with two hearts his stamina must have been pretty good...).

When they were somewhere hot, the Doctor would roll his shirt sleeves up too. He always did it messily, one sleeve folded neatly and the other shoved up his arm so it would flop down again not long after. It proved her point about him faking his narcissistic act- the Doctor was really a scruff. He'd leave his shoelaces untied and the odd shirt button undone- not to mention the fact that that his coat and suit trousers were too big for him in the first place. That was partly why his hair was so mesmerising; it was the only part of his appearance he actually cared about.

After Bad Wolf Bay, trapped in the wrong Universe, Rose had often asked herself _why_ she never did or said anything about the two of them. Why she'd never laid her cards on the table, told the Doctor how she was feeling, how she daydreamed about shoving him up against a pillar and kissing him senseless. How much time she spent marvelling at his hair, how she definitely hadn't wanted to fall for him but it had happened anyway. And she could- should- have _asked him_ if he felt the same. Asked if his winking and flirting and hand-holding meant anything, or if he was only being silly and friendly and the almost ninehundred-year age-gap between a girl from South London and an alien was too enormous and ridiculous a difference for anything to between them. But those times the Doctor lean against her as they sat on the chair in the control room, and when he beamed at her for no reason- those were the times she was sure that he felt something back. Besides, if Rose had learnt anything from the Doctor it was that the universe is enormous and ridiculous. As enormous and ridiculous as his hair. Enormous and ridiculous enough for love.

"Some... _really_ great hair."

 **Thank you for reading, please review to let me know what you thought. Also thanks to TenthDoctorMatt's Youtube videos for the hairstyle info.**


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